Holocaust compensation fight yields little

The Jewish new year, which started last Friday night, traditionally marks more than just a celebration of a new beginning. It represents the start of a week-long period of reflection on, and repentance for, the year that has passed.

For many Holocaust survivors and their families, looking back will lead to a sense of disappointment. In spite of the international rows, the statements of good intent and the high-profile handshakes and agreements, little has emerged from the long campaigns for Holocaust compensation.

September was supposed to mark the start of compensation payments from German companies for their use of forced and slave labour during the war. But the deadline - timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland - has come and gone.

Months of bitter wrangling between lawyers, companies and diplomats lie ahead. Meanwhile, a year after the landmark $1.25 billion (€1.2 billion) agreement with three Swiss banks over victims' bank accounts and looted gold, the cash remains bogged down in a legal quagmire.

"I am devastated, because I keep meeting survivors who are not going to survive much longer," says Lord Janner, the British peer who helped to prompt early inquiries into Nazi plundering of Holocaust victims. "It is so very sad. A man came up to me at Heathrow who said: `I am very grateful for what you people have done but I am getting very old. When am I going to get anything to help me survive?' "

While some payments have emerged from smaller funds, including humanitarian funds from Austrian and Swiss companies, the headline settlements remain out of reach. The delays, complexity and downright squabbling over freeing the Swiss settlement has affected the range of Holocaust-related negotiations that have followed.

Mr Stuart Eizenstat, the US deputy Treasury secretary who has led the international talks over Holocaust assets, says failings over the Swiss bank settlement have shaped discussions with German companies over forced labour. Claimants in the Swiss case focused on the level of the overall settlement, leaving it to the courts to decide on how to allocate the money. "We are now one year after the August 1998 settlement, and not one nickel has gone out," he says. "No one wants a repeat of that."

One cause of the delay is the widespread use of class-action lawsuits in compensation claims. Lawyers have brought claims on behalf of large numbers of individuals in a group - such as workers in one factory. Such suits can be launched with only one named plaintiff, but lawyers try to identify others.

The final hearing on the allocation of the $1.25 billion is due to be held at the end of November, but the court has yet to resolve basic issues about the division of the settlement. Delays have led to growing tensions between Jewish groups and class-action lawyers. The two sides have argued over who should lead talks, and where they should be resolved.

"I am not blaming the individual lawyers or the court, but it is the nature of the class-action system. You have to hear claims, place advertisements in newspapers around the world, create lists to identify claimants and organisations. That is the way lawyers operate," says Mr Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress.

Clashes between lawyers and Jewish groups have spilled over into other negotiations, particularly over a proposed settlement with Austrian banks.

The congress is challenging a $40 million settlement with Bank Austria and Creditanstalt, on the grounds that it is too low and lawyers' fees too high.

In the Swiss case, although most lawyers agreed to act pro bono - without a fee - some are charging, and others are claiming expenses. The total amount for lawyers' fees is limited to $25 million, with another $20 million going on advertising to identify survivors. A group of survivors has already pulled out of the settlement in protest at the lawyers' fees, and one survivor is even suing her own lawyer.

In the German negotiations, where more lawyers are charging fees, the fees could rise to hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on the overall settlement. The German talks are taking time to establish who should receive how much compensation - lawyers as well as the victims.

Some members of the Jewish community say the unseemly wrangle over delays has left the survivors largely forgotten. "The tragedy is that every day that goes by, someone who could be helped, won't be helped," says Mr Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League. "The survivors are patient and waiting, but the reaper waits for no one."